The pleas for Garry Lyon to step in and help fix the crisis at Melbourne came immediately after the diabolical 148-point loss to Essendon.

However the former Melbourne great says he cannot be the man to rescue the Demons.

On the other side of the microphone: Garry Lyon faces the media, in 2011. Photo: Wayne Taylor

Former Melbourne players and influential supporters contacted Lyon on Saturday night asking him to pull his old club out of the mire it has plunged into after embarrassing back-to-back defeats in the opening rounds of 2013.

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But the revered former captain reiterated that his professional commitments, including his varied roles in the football media, made it impossible for him to take on the type of day-to-day job that would be required of him.

Lyon said he had faith in football director Greg Healy, who he called a "good operator" as well as director of sports performance Neil Craig - but would also support any assistance the AFL was willing to provide the club, as offered by league boss Andrew Demetriou on Monday.

A reluctant Lyon stepped in to sort out the club's problematic football department after a defeat of similarly disastrous proportions in 2011, the 186-point loss to Geelong that turned out to be a "coach killer" for Dean Bailey.

However Lyon did so only when asked by, and as a favour to, his then-terminally ill friend Jim Stynes, the former Melbourne president who lost his battle with cancer a year ago.

Lyon admitted on Monday night he had a key influence on the re-structuring and make-up of the current football department now under siege, including the appointments of coach Mark Neeld, elite performance manager David Misson and Craig.

He revealed the review he was asked to undertake by Stynes was based purely on football, and did not involve setting up the club's revamped recruiting and player development departments.

"That was all done when Neil Craig came on board. I have enormous faith in Neil Craig and his ability to implement what he thinks is a framework to take the club forward," Lyon said.

"Obviously, right now it is a battle."

Lyon, gutted over the club's lifeless performances against the Bombers and Port Adelaide, called the Essendon loss a "nightmare" for the club.

However he said Melbourne's deplorable start to the year had not made him second guess the process behind appointing Neeld, done during his six-month full-time stint as fill-in football director leading into the 2012 season.

Neeld has this season and next year to run on his contract.

"He's under enormous pressure. I can't sit back and watch what unfolds on the weekend and not question myself, or where they are at as a footy club," Lyon said.

"But what I'm not going to do, on the back of one season and two games, is go back to the process and all the reasons why we appointed Mark and say 'well, they are not right'," he said.

"I'm not going to do that. Others can, but I'm not.

"Right now you can get a bit hysterical and say 'well, you just picked this guy out of nowhere'. Well, no we didn't.

"You don't make these decisions on a whim, you go through a very detailed process, and obviously it's not working at the moment.

"You talk to (Carlton coach) Mick Malthouse, who was Mark's mentor, you talk to very experienced football people that dealt with him. You go through as good a process as you possibly can and that's what we came up with."